


Recompense

by TehRaincoat



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 15:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16835860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TehRaincoat/pseuds/TehRaincoat
Summary: Azula will stop at nothing to get back at Zuko for Mai's betrayal.





	Recompense

**Author's Note:**

> "What if Ty Lee had not betrayed Azula at Boiling Rock"

There is an uncomfortable silence amongst the soldiers that man the airship. In the distance, her brother’s stolen war balloon is a crimson speck against the clear cerulean of the mid summer sky.

Azula slaps away Ty Lee’s hands as she attempts to worry over her wounds once again. The deep one in her belly still aches and throbs, the stitches mere hours old. Azula feels both hot and cold all at once, sweat dripping distractingly down her face and neck.

Zuko and his friends have made enough headway that she doesn’t believe her ship will catch up to them while they’re still in the air. The possibility that they will once on land again, however, is exponential. She wants this to end quickly and painfully for Zuko, but she also understands that he will likely lead her straight to the Avatar…And since she’s on such a roll.

Mai’s limp form still fills her mind’s eye, but Azula’s bloodlust has yet to be sated. If she wins this decisive victory for the Fire Nation now it will only be a boon…She’ll probably feel better too. Ty Lee sighs where she’s seated at her side.

“Azula,” she begins, hesitant.

Azula can hear the _fear_ in her voice. Good. Good she should be afraid. She should be.

“…Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t look well…” Ty Lee worries quietly, her large eyes soft as she looks at the princess.

The line of Azula’s mouth hardens.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ty Lee, I’m fine.” _No thanks to you_. She had not bothered to help Azula with Mai. The victory would have been far quicker if Ty Lee had not wavered. It’s only more proof for Azula’s belief that sentiment is foolish and useless to people like her.

Half of her pain certainly does not stem from the fact that her oldest friend would choose Zuko over her. Would see something in him that Azula cannot seem to.

She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, pressing her hand to her wounded side as she does. Her chin wavers.

“Azula…”

The princess stands in one swift motion, marching briskly to the hull to stare out at the expanse of sky before them and the hopeful little dot in the distance. It has begun to descend.

“Your orders, princess?”

She continues to stare out of the windows. “Take the ship down. We’ll approach on foot and surprise them.”

“Yes, your highness.”

“Maybe if we got closer…”

Azula rounds on Ty Lee.

“When I want your opinion I will ask for it!” She stares at the acrobat until the other girl has backed down, slinking away to leave Azula to her own thoughts at the hull. The princess turns back to the view, shaking hands coming to clasp at the small of her back.

Her stomach rises in the cavity of her torso as they descend. Her wound throbs once again. Azual leans uncomfortably.

*

She waits for the opportune moment.

They’ve all gone around and congratulated themselves on their victory at The Boiling Rock, and the Water Tribe peasants have embraced their father and the Avatar has some forward to watch and smile and then Azula breathes in deeply, and shoots out a fist.

The entire little band of the Avatar’s followers scatters. Zuko has turned, at the ready, and the little earth bender doesn’t seem all that surprised (she wouldn’t be).

Azula marches forward, doing her best to look regal, and untouchable. Zuko’s eyes are wide as he looks at her.

“Azula!”

She grins sharply.

“What you thought you’d get away that easily? You should have made certain that no one could follow you Zuzu. That was your fatal mistake. It was a valiant effort though, really it was.” Azula’s gait doesn’t bely the pain of every step that she takes. It spears through her gut in time with her footfalls. “The time for celebrating is over. You and I are finally going to end this.”

Zuko stares hard at Azula from where he stands before his new group of _friends_. Just apart from them. Still just a little out of place. Like he will always be.

Honestly she’ll be doing him a favour in ending his misery here and now.

“Agni Kai,” she announces, stopping with a hand braced against her hip. Her lips curl at the corners into a smile. Zuko’s hands are still loose at his sides, but he is taking stock of the situation at hand.

“Azula, maybe this isn’t the best — “

“Ty Lee, what did I say about your opinion?”

“…That if you wanted it you would ask…” the other girl recites, standing to the side just slightly when Azula’s attention is too hot on her. Her fingers have grasped at her forearm tightly, anxious.

Azula only stares at the acrobat a moment more before she returns her attention to Zuko. Expression wolfishly pleasant, she spreads her hands.

“What do you say, brother?”

Zuko’s silent a moment longer, obviously deep in thought as he stares back at her. “No thanks,” he parrots finally.

Azula nearly laughs.

“Suit yourself. I’m sure these soldiers will be happy to relieve you all of your hard won freedom.”

Behind Zuko, the Avatar and his motley crew have sunk into defensive stances, ready for the onslaught which is about to occur. At Azula’s back, the sound of armour scraping against armour sounds as the fire benders she has brought with her prepare themselves as well, and begin the advance.

Azula turns her back toward her brother and his allies. Her gold gaze settles on Ty Lee, a small smirk lighting upon her lips.

“ _Now_ you may contribute,” she tells her.

“Wait!”

The soldiers halt, and Azula turns back toward her brother, a mild questioning look gracing her features.

“What? Had a change of heart?” Azula’s voice is dry.

“Yes.”

Her lips pull thin over her teeth, her brow lowering at Zuko’s new decision.

The Avatar comes forward, a hand pressed to Zuko’s arm. He looks between the siblings with worry wrinkled over his brow. He whispers something to Zuko. Zuko shakes his head dismissively. He says something in return that Azula cannot hear. The banished prince takes a step forward.

“I accept your challenge,” Zuko announces, rolling up his sleeves.

Azula takes another stiff step forward of her own, separating herself from the guards and Ty Lee. She dismisses the soldiers with a wave of her hand. Ty Lee still lingers just at the corner of Azula’s eye.

“Please stop this.” Ty Lee’s voice is almost a whisper, “You’re not yourself.”

Azula ignores her.

He’ll come from the left. It’s the side that he favours. He might have trained his entire life on the right side of his body, but she knows Zuko. Just as she’d known Mai.

_No, no, he’ll come from the right_. 

More logical. He’s trained on his right his entire life.

Azula closes in with careful footwork.

He comes from the left.

The princess spins out of the way of the first volley, but only just. The air shimmers in front of her fist before she aims back with three successive strikes. Right, left, roundhouse kick. Her blue flame arches away from her toward its intended target. Heat licks the air.

Zuko ducks. The ground crackles under his knees as he slides toward her and makes another shot.

She’s flying. Her back arched, Azula lands low, leg out for balance. She winces as pain radiates out from her side and down to her toes. She sees Zuko notice. She doesn’t give him the time to process precisely what he’s seen.

Her arm shoots out, breath leaving her lungs in a rush. It’s followed by licking flame and the crackle and pop of fire in the cool temple air. This time it’s Zuko who must dodge.

He dives. Azula pivots to face him, her hands out defensively to swath away his offence. Her honey eyes go wide at the literal pillar of flames that rush toward her. It’s more powerful than anything she’s ever seen from Zuko.

She dodges behind one of the great many stone pillars. The stone is rough at her palms. It heats noticeably with the prolonged blast of his flame. She dodges to the next, and flame spills out beyond the stone, following her.

Azula stays low, whirls out beyond her hiding place to return fire, and then back again. He makes the same move twice. She runs to the next pillar and the next.

She can smell the singe of super heated metal at her shoulder where he’s managed to hit the shoulder plate. Her nostrils flare.

Azula dives from behind her shelter once more, loosing one of the tiny, thin, blades she’d pilfered from Mai’s singed corpse in her brother’s direction.

Zuko surprises her. He catches the stiletto. His eyes are wide again, and he looks sharply from the weapon in his hand to her.

The air grows thick.

“Where did you get this?” The question is a bellow despite the rapid rise and fall of his chest from the exertion they have both been putting forth.

Azula barely feels as though she can stand any longer but that doesn’t stop her from breathlessly laughing at the demand. She turns sloppily, hurling a plume of azure flame at her brother’s face.

He reels away gracefully, coming up the side of the blast. His fingers curl in the straps of her armour. He yanks her toward him, teeth bared. The hand that she cannot see buries its knuckles into the tender area where her wound lies beneath her armour.

Azula doubles over, dry heaving. At first her breath will not return to her, then she wheezes. Zuko drags her back up again.

“I said, where did you get this?”

“She screamed when I burned her,” Azula tells him quietly, the words slipping through her teeth thinly. She can taste copper.

“She writhed in pain.” She draws the description out almost lazily.

He roars, bringing his closed fist down on her wound once again. She spasms, knees giving out. Zuko holds onto her like a lifeline, dragging her back toward one of the old fountains that litter the Western Air Temple.

Her soldiers are moving now, she can hear them rushing toward Zuko, Ty Lee no doubt in step. Zuko pauses for only a moment to glare at them, forbidding.

“This is an Agni Kai,” he reminds them severely. “Do not interfere!”

“It ceased being an Agni Kai the moment you started using fists,” Ty Lee answers back sharply. There’s desperation in her voice. Azula wonders what she plans to do. Will she interfere now? Like she didn’t before with Mai?

“Stay right where you are,” Zuko commands. He continues to stare down the Fire Nation nationals for an uncomfortable length of time. 

Azula feels her armour catching against the rubble littered on the cobbled ground as he begins to drag her toward the fountain once again. Her hands have found purchase on Zuko’s arm. She heats them rapidly.

He grits his teeth, breath hissing through them. She feels his chi ripple under her palms. Sound closes in around her when her head is plunged under water.

Azula’s body jerks, her collar aching, the wound in her side screaming. He pulls her out of the water and Azula coughs harshly, lungs heaving. She gags again.

There’s a scuffle in the background, beyond her confrontation with her brother. Azula cannot quite focus on it but it seems that Ty Lee and the soldiers have come to blows with the Avatar’s group. She brings her attention back to her brother, wide eyed.

The world muffles. Her head disappears under the water again. It spins as air rushes back into her lungs and she’s yanked from the fountain once more.

Then she laughs again, wheezing, voice raw.

“She gave up everything for you,” she tells him tightly, “like a fool!” Water sprays from her lips, trailing in thick rivulets from her soaked hair.

Lights burst behind her eyes when Zuko’s fist makes contact with her face. Once. Twice. Azula feels the fight leaving her as the pain in her entire body makes itself known.

Her shoulder makes hard contact with the ground. Azula’s head reels. Zuko comes in and out of focus.

“Stop! This isn’t how we do things!” The Avatar’s voice.

“No, this isn’t how _you_ do things,” Zuko shoots back, fists clenched at his sides. Fire streams from them when he brings his hands down in a sharp gesture. “She killed Mai! Mai — she died for me!”

“You won the fight.” A less familiar voice. A young woman…When she comes into focus Azula realises it’s the Water Tribe peasant who follows the Avatar everywhere. She’s reached out a hand to settle on Zuko’s wrist.

“I know that you’re upset and angry,” the girl continues, “but — hurting your sister won’t solve your grief. It’ll only add to it.”

Zuko’s breathing is rapid, but Azula can see him calming; coming down. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him do so this quickly. He’s different. He’s different and she knows it. The voice in the back of her mind which polices her day to day habits hisses at her that she needs to put an end to him now. He can’t be allowed to be different. He’s a _threat_.

“Azula!”

She’s being dragged upward clumsily, reedy arms encircling her, bringing Azula to recovery position against someone’s chest. Azula can barely breathe deep enough. Her head is still spinning.

She recognises Ty Lee’s perfume.

Zuko turns his back on them, the Avatar and the Water Tribe girl place their hands upon his shoulders, guiding him from the fight. He limps, his clothes tattered, but he stands far taller and surer on his feet than she does. Azula bares her teeth.

“He needs to die,” she confides in Ty Lee, voice pinched.

The acrobat stiffens, her hands still clutching desperately to Azula’s armour, and then her body is relaxed once more, her breathing even.

“Okay,” Ty Lee answers.

Somehow, her friend manages to get Azula to her feet. The princess clutches still at her freshly bleeding wound. Her hand grows sticky and wet as her blood seeps through the slats in her armour.

Shakily she takes her stance. Thunder cracks at the sloppy passage of the lightning from her fingertips, and then it reverberates through her body, searing and scratching along her skin. Azula convulses, pain radiating through her, her teeth clenched.

*

When next she wakes, Azula’s head feels stuffed with cotton. Muffled sound strikes at her ears, and nearby someone shifts and looks at her. When she can focus she sees Zuko once again. Jaw tense, he stares down at her unblinking and silent for what seems like an eternity.

Attempting to move her hands, Azula finds them bound at her back, useless.

“Zuzu…”

“Katara saved your life, so you should thank her,” he interrupts. “You lost the Agni Kai. I redirected your lightning back at you. You’re my prisoner now.”

“You won’t get away with that,” she says thickly.

“Yeah, actually, I will. The soldiers who were working for you? They’ve defected to my side. They’re gonna help us on the day of the comet, which as you know is fast approaching.”

“Dad will send someone to get me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Azula feels the blood leave her face. It aches.

“Of…Of course I’m sure. Why wouldn’t he send someone? I’m the heir to the throne.”

“Well, it just seems to me that he’ll set his heirs aside for way smaller crimes than losing to the family disappointment. But you know him best, I guess.”

Azula’s stomach stumbles over itself. She presses her lips together, and her eyelids. Her head still buzzes, her ears ring.

“What do you plan…to do with me,” she demands finally, voice sober.

“First, I’m going to pump you for information,” he says, leaning toward her, “since I figure you basically know all there is to know about the upcoming invasion of the Earth Kingdom. You spearheaded the campaign, after all. Then, we’re gonna lock you up in a nice cold room, and keep you there until after the comet has passed. I have yet to decide what I’m gonna do with you past that.”

“You can’t do this to me.” Voice breaking, Azula looks pleadingly at her brother.

“Sure I can. You’d better get used to the idea, actually, because no matter what I decide, you’re going to be locked up for a long time, little sister.”

A small, animalistic, noise escapes her throat, and Azula’s knees come up closer to her chest as she wheezes out.

“Where’s — where’s Ty Lee?”

“Already in the prison hold. You won’t be seeing one another ever again.”

Zuko turns and marches away before she can say more. Azula watches him go, shame welling up around her like a wave.


End file.
